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COLUMBIA (AP) — A 19-year-old man was to be ar raigned today in connection with a weekend shooting in which two persons were killed and five injured at a party at the University of South Carolina. Arraignment was set for Mark Houston of Columbia, who was charged with two counts of murder and five counts of assault and battery with intent to kill. Police arrested the USC sophomore about three hours after the shooting early Saturday. According to police and students at the Kappa Alpha Psi homecoming party, the gunman entered a crowded recreation room at Bates West, a high-rise dormitory, and sprayed bullets, hitting five persons. He then ran outside and onto a walkway, where two more students were shot, one fatally. The dead students were identified as Terrell Johnson, 21, of St. Matthews, and Patrick McGinty, 19, of Wilmington, Del. “No one knows what led to the shooting,” said M.D. Harrelson, chief of the University of South Carolina Police. ‘‘All of a sudden, he just pulled a pistol and fired a couple of times — then he ran and was shooting as he was running.” ‘Houston was at a party two weeks ago and there apparently were some bad feelings between him and a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity at that time,” said Assistant Solicitor Richard . Houston’s roommate, who was at the party when the shooting took place, said he could think of no reason for the shootings. ‘He was a straight-up guy, a good man. He went to his classes,”’ said a man who identified himself only as a “close friend”’ of Houston. ‘‘I couldn’t see him doing it under no circumstances. He wasn’t that type of dude.”’ Ronald Drayton, a member of the fraternity, said “Nobody knew the sounds were bullets” when the par tygoers heard several explosions. “When people realized there were bullets flying around the room, there was general hysteria. (The gunman) was over at the door and he proceeded to shoot the gun,”’ Drayton continued. “Some people hit the floor and others ran out the door. Then he ran up the ramp shooting people,” he said. Johnson was attending the party and was shot in the head. McGinty, who ‘was just walking by” when he was shot outside the dorm, died at a hospital about four hours after the 12:15 a.m. shooting, police and univer sity officials said. Houston surrendered to authorities after with his parents and police. A .32-caliber pistol was recovered at the time of the arrest, a University of South eo spokesman said, ad Leslie Kates, a graduate student ir, sociology up stairs resident housing director athe dorm, described it as a night when “‘five minutes was an hour. _~ She was called to the recreation hall moments after the shooting. ‘On one side of the lobby was the guy who got shot in the head. On the other side of the was the guy who had been shot in the leg. ... The people were around him, just hanging on to each other. “The place was just all bloody, all bloody,”” Ms. Kates, 23, of Boston, said. “Then they said this wasn’t the worst of it. I ran back to the social hall and there was the guy lying dead on the floor.”’ By then, she said, the emergency medical teams and hearses had arrived. It was a nightmare that will ‘‘be imprinted in my memory”’ forever, she said.
Newspaper Details
Aiken Standard
Aiken, South Carolina, US
Mon, Oct 08, 1979
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
William A.
USA 03 Jun 2026
Other Publications Near Aiken, South Carolina
Aiken Daily Mail
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